The Myer Christmas windows featuring “Russel’s Christmas Magic”
My beautiful baby brother Ben was married a week ago to his long-term sweetheart Natalie and his wedding drew our family back to my hometown of Melbourne. I spent two weeks ensconced in the familiarity of my parent’s home in the eastern suburbs however we stayed downtown the weekend of the wedding. This provided the opportunity to participate in a Melbourne Christmas Tradition – visiting the Myer Christmas windows.
The Myer Department store has been hosting an animated Christmas display in its front windows since 1956 and every year an estimated 1.2 million adults and children visit. This year the display features “Russel’s Christmas Magic” a story by Rob Scotton.
While my children are unfamiliar with the book that inspired this year’s animation their enthusiasm wasn’t dampened. The final window depicted a traditional Nativity scene which I was grateful for. The Myer Christmas Windows are on display from early November to early January each year.
Bub 1 at the wedding
Other highlights of our Melbourne weekend (other than the wedding) were a spontaneous international cuisine dinner crawl (incorporating European, Vietnamese and Korean dining). Melbourne is famous for its food and most restaurants in the inner city are a safe bet. By restaurant hopping for each course we were not in one venue long enough for the children to become bored and they were fascinated by the different courses (even though we ordered something familiar for them at each location).
Melbourne’s Chinatown
When visiting big cities we seek out green space for the children and Carlton Gardens provided some quiet time for them to relax feeding the ducks.
Carlton Gardens
We stayed at Oaks on Lonsdale. I recommend this apartment hotel to families visiting Melbourne. Our spacious two-bedroom apartment cost the same as a hotel room would have, was ideally located, well maintained and we were treated well by staff.
Melbourne street art
This post links to Delicious Baby’s Photo Friday.
